1. Technical Field
The present application relates to a technology for controlling communications buses which are implemented as a network on a semiconductor chip.
2. Description of the Related Art
NoC (network-on-chip) is a set of communications buses implemented as a network. A conventional method for distributing transfer data efficiently over an NoC is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4796668, for example. FIG. 1 illustrates a configuration for the buses disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 4796668. In FIG. 1, each of transmitting-end functional modules A can choose one of four routes R1 to R4 as a route to transfer data to a receiving-end functional module B. Before transferring data to the receiving-end functional module B, each of the transmitting-end functional modules A gets the respective traffic flow rates of those four routes R1 to R4 from the receiving-end functional module B, and chooses its own data transfer route so that the flow rates of the respective routes R1 to R4 become as uniform as possible. By having each of those transmitting-end functional modules A perform such an operation independently of each other, the imbalance in traffic flow rate between the four routes R1 to R4 can be minimized, and data can be transferred in a broad band with the buses operated at low operating frequencies.